We’re introducing a new feature of the Procedural Fairness Blog today. For new research on procedural fairness, we’ve already recommended our quarterly research reports. One of the authors of the quarterly reports, Justine Greve (M.A., American Studies), a staff member at the Kansas Court of Appeals, is going to put her past training in public radio to work for us by interviewing authors of some of the new research we think you’ll find of interest.

Her first interview (available in either an abridged or extended format) is with Kelly Frailing and Diana Carreon, who did an interesting study of a drug court in Laredo, Texas, where most of the population is Hispanic–and generally bilingual.

After watching judges and participants switch between Spanish and English at the Laredo drug court, Frailing and Carreon wanted to find out how being able to speak with the judge in Spanish influenced people’s perceptions of fairness in that court. They found that participants saw bilingualism as a positive feature of the court, even reporting that they felt the ability to communicate in Spanish was important to success in their case.

This may seem unsurprising in a community where the vast majority of the population is Hispanic: anyone would feel more comfortable speaking to a judge in his or her primary language. But almost all of these drug-court participants were bilingual from an early age, fluent in English as well as Spanish.

In the interview, Frailing and Carreon discuss their study and interpret their findings, suggesting that language in a court setting may mean more to people than just being able to understand and to be understood. Steve Leben

For more than a year, our website has been posting a Quarterly Research Report featuring the most notable scholarship we’ve found in procedural fairness and procedural justice. The report is edited by Justine Greve, M.A., a staff member at the Kansas Court of Appeals, and Shelley Spacek Miller, J.D., a staff member at the National Center for State Courts.
The Summer 2015 report has just been posted, and one interesting study compares views about police legitimacy among residents of St. Louis County, Missouri, in interviews taken before and after the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Researchers from Southern Illinois University Carbondale had done extensive interviews of nearly 400 people living in high-crime and disadvantaged parts of St. Louis County for a study on policing in 2012 and 2013. Most of the respondents in that survey lived within six miles of where Brown was killed. So the researchers followed up with new interviews of the same people in September and October 2014 to compare public perceptions before and after Brown’s shooting.
The 2014 questioning came immediately after protests, looting, and violence that followed the Brown shooting. The interviews asked questions related to police legitimacy (defined by the researchers as “a view that police authority is valid and to be respected and adhered to”) and to trust in police and procedural justice (defined by the researchers as “a belief that police act fairly, impartially, and respectfully”).
Overall, perceptions of both police legitimacy and trust/procedural justice declined (by 5% and 17% respectively). But the perception rose slightly for nonblack residents (up 2% for each) while falling significantly (by 8% and 26%) for African-American respondents. Views also diverged in feelings about the public and police responses. A majority of nonblack respondents disagreed with the public’s response to the shooting, while a majority of blacks agreed with it. A majority of nonblack respondents agreed with the police response to protests, looting, and riots in the area, while a majority of black respondents did not.
This study, of course, captures views from only a small geographical area, but the respondents certainly intensely experienced the events of that time. It’s one of many new research articles and reports that you can find in the latest Quarterly Research Report.

The Center for Court Innovation (CCI) is seeking courts to participate in an assessment of each court’s procedural-fairness practices. CCI is accepting applications until June 12 from local courts with the jurisdiction to hear criminal cases.

The official Request for Proposals gives full details on the project, but CCI says that it hopes to advance procedural-justice goals “by (1) highlighting promising practices for the field at large, (2) helping jurisdictions identify problem areas, and (3) outlining short- and longer-term plans to implement appropriate interventions.”

CCI suggests that this project “is targeted to criminal courts interested in deepening their understanding of procedural justice and examining whether and how their current practice promotes the core elements of procedural justice: voice, respect, understanding, and neutrality.” The selected sites will gain the feedback of outsiders who are familiar with the background research in this area.

The project will focus on four key areas at each site:

· Providing information about court procedures to court users and to the community;

· Fostering a user-friendly courthouse environment;

· Developing mechanisms to solicit and respond to feedback from staff and court users; and

· Improving the communication strategies used by judges and other court staff.

Project staff will provide suggestions for improving practices in each court.

From time to time, it’s useful to take stock of some of the evidence that demonstrates that the judge who spends the time to learn procedural-fairness principles and who shows the discipline to practice them regularly is doing something valuable. Toward that end, let’s consider a study of drug courts operating in 29 different locations around the United States.

Like many other studies, this one concluded that drug courts do produce both significant reductions in relapse to further serious drug abuse and significant reductions in criminal behavior. But the researchers asked a critical question: Why does this occur? And that’s where the principles of procedural fairness came squarely to the fore:

“Role of the Judge: The primary mechanism by which drug courts reduce substance use and crime is through the judge. Drug court offenders believe that their judge treated them more fairly than the comparison group, including demonstrating greater respect and interest in them as individuals and greater opportunities to express their own voice during proceedings. Furthermore, when offenders have more positive attitudes toward the judge, they have better outcomes. This was true across all offender subgroups when examining demographics, drug use history, criminality, and mental health. A separate analysis drawing upon the results of structured courtroom observations found, similarly, that drug courts whose judge was rated by members of the research team as exhibiting a more positive judicial demeanor (e.g., respectful, fair, attentive, enthusiastic, consistent/predictable, caring, and knowledgeable) produced better outcomes than other drug courts. Both analyses reaffirmed the central role of the judge.”

Drug courts by design provide greater voice to defendants and opportunities for judges to show respectful treatment of defendants. Judges who do a good job in carrying out these roles get better results—and this appears to be true across various demographic groups. Sounds like a winner to me.

The study, reported in 2011, was done by the Urban Institute, the Center for Court Innovation, and RTI International. The Executive Summary is a quick and easy read.

As judges, we know that we should practice the principles of procedural fairness—voice, respect, neutrality, and trust. But what specific things might we do in the courtroom?

As part of its courtroom-communication training program for the state court in Milwaukee, the Center for Court Innovation put together a list of observable behaviors that court observers could look for to see whether judges were practicing these principles. Among the behaviors listed there:
· The court started on time.
· The judge apologized for any delay in the starting of court.
· The judge or other court staff clearly explained court etiquette and rules at the beginning of the court session.
· The judge provided some overview of what might happen during various court appearances and how decisions would be made.
· The judge assured the defendants that all of the evidence would be considered before making any decision.
· The judge made eye contact with the audience upon entering the court.
· The judge introduced himself/herself by name.
· The judge thanked the audience members for their on-time appearance.
· The judge acknowledged the experience of defendants while waiting for their cases to be called (e.g., having to sit quietly, waiting for a potentially long period, etc.).

As far as I know, there’s no research so specific as to track the effect of any of these specific behaviors on courtroom participants. But all of them seem to be reasonable suggestions that would help lead those in the courtroom to conclude that a judge is sincere and caring.

We will note other lists of observable courtroom behaviors that may promote a sense of fairness in the courtroom in a later blog post. The full report of the Center for Court Innovation’s Milwaukee court-training program is on the web.

The Procedural Fairness website has started a new service, providing a quarterly summary of recent research. Found under the “Resources” tab on our website (click on “Resources” and then choose “Quarterly Research Report” from there), the report is edited by Justine Greve (M.A., American Studies), a staff member at the Kansas Court of Appeals, and Shelley Spacek Miller (J.D.), a staff member at the National Center for State Courts.

They have scoured a variety of academic and other sources to find new books, articles, and events related to procedural fairness. We will note the posting of each quarterly report here on the Procedural Fairness Blog. Wherever possible, Greve and Miller have provided a link either to the full article or a summary.

We hope that this will prove helpful to you. Let us know your thoughts.

State-court chief justices often provide a state-of-the-judiciary address at the beginning of the year, highlighting key issues, accomplishments, and challenges. Although they may address important topics, many of them are of little interest to those outside the state. But this year’s address by Utah Chief Justice Matthew B. Durrant should be of great interest to anyone interested in procedural fairness in courts.

Chief Justice Durrant began his speech with a number: 93. That’s the percentage who agreed that they had been “satisfied with [their] experience at court today” in a recent survey taken as litigants and others left Utah courthouses. He also cited other data showing that 90% or more agreed that their court hearing had been fair, that the judge had listened to all sides, that the person understood what had happened, and the person knew what to do next in the case. And 96% felt they had been treated with courtesy and respect.

What makes this a must-read address for the purposes of this blog is not the data, even though it is incredibility positive. What makes it a must-read is that Chief Justice Durrant tied these results to the ongoing work in Utah courts to emphasize procedural fairness. As Durrant put it, “[W]e have taken the research in this area to heart. We have educated our judges and helped them hone these skills.”

Take a look at Chief Justice Durrant’s address. Give some thought to how you might use procedural-fairness principles. In Utah, they have taught these principles to their judges, they have done some measurements to see how courts are performing in this area, and they have reported the results to the public.

Utah is different than most other states because it also has a formal judicial-evaluation program that specifically observes judges in the courtroom to see how well the judge practices procedural-fairness principles. Other judges generally aren’t formally evaluated that way. But the Utah experience is worth considering, and Chief Justice Durrant’s recent speech is a good starting place.